Geography and Genealogy in the Talmud

3.0 credits · Undergraduate

Who determines who can marry whom, where, and when? This is a classic problem in social anthropology. The rabbis of the Babylonian Talmud were also concerned with such questions. Their proposed answers and dilemmas reveal tensions between the communities living in the Land of Israel and those in Babylonian diaspora. We will consider broadly the relation between space and kinship, and will focus our time on Chapter 4 of the tractate Kiddushin. Some reading knowledge of Rabbinic Hebrew-Aramaic required.